#Bible quotes about listening crack

One day she called from a facility in Texas and griped about how they were being unfair to her. But this was my precious, unique, fearfully and wonderfully made daughter. I kept trying, but nothing seemed to do any good. When she would call me to complain about things, I confidently bestowed my pearls of wisdom. At first I saw this as yet another problem to be solved. Then my nine-year-old daughter began a 15-year journey through psychiatric institutions and group homes. Silence was just another word for failure to help. My wife and kids believed I had all the answers. If someone from my church family needed help and advice, they called me. He wrote, “I’m a fixer, a problem-solver. Roland Winkle wrote an essay for the Christian Century last week. And the pain starts to seep out of our kids’ heart, and the truth starts to be revealed.

#Bible quotes about listening crack

And so we keep sitting there, not talking, but being attentive… And sometimes, after about an eternity, something starts to crack open in the silence. “What’s up?” “Oh, nothing.” “What happened today?” “Nothing.”īut we know that something happened… something is troubling them. You’re sitting at the kitchen table with them. We’re all experienced that, right? Our kids have something heavy on their hearts. For the truth that we’re seeking can be found in the silences between the words. Listen to the words, sure… but listen between the words.

In my counselling classes in seminary, our professor used to tell us to listen between the words. The sound of sheer silence… which means we have to stop talking, and listen into the depths. And after the fire… a sound of sheer silence… And sitting there in the silence, the voice of God came to Elijah and said, “What are you doing here, Elijah?” (1 Kings 19:11-13) And after the earthquake there was a fire but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the wind came an earthquake but the Lord was not in the earthquake. The word of the Lord came to Elijah, and said, “Go out and stand on the mountain before the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by.” And there was a great wind, so strong that it was splitting the mountains… but the Lord was not in the wind. That’s how Elijah in the Hebrew scriptures encountered God. In our time of quiet, it’s how we listen for the voice of God, which comes not in roar of the whirlwind, but in the quiet of the listening heart.